Inviting Our Thanksgivings

Dear People, Neighbours, and Friends of St. Thomas’s,

Have you ever noticed that when you’re in a church that invites corporate additions to the prayers “silently or aloud,” the silence sometimes speaks louder than words?

I imagine most of us have been to many church services where we are invited to name those who form a part of our personal intentions. These usually fall into three categories: prayers for the sick and those in any need or trouble, prayers for the dead and those who mourn them, and prayers of thanksgiving for all the blessings of this life.

Congregations tend not to have any trouble at all naming the sick and those who care for them. The dead and those who are mourning come naturally to mind, and when we are asked to name them, a soft murmur will spread over many a congregation. But when we are given an opportunity to give thanks, “silently or aloud,” I have to assume that the silence that all too often follows must be owing to the reticence of people who do not want to come across as boastful, because otherwise I’d have to interpret the silence as a lack of gratitude to God.

“I invite your thanksgivings, silently or aloud,” the intercessor or deacon or celebrant prays, after which there’s a hush, a profound silence that stretches, thankfully, for only a few awkward seconds at most before the intercessor moves on to the next petition. Perhaps in the background a cricket chirps, a baby cries, or a horse whickers. (If you’re in a church within earshot of horses, that is.)

I think it’s much easier for human beings to name what’s amiss in their lives than to be thankful for what’s going well. There are doubtless various reasons for this. We take our blessings for granted, not being conscious of how thankful we ought to be for them until they are taken away from us. Or perhaps there’s a fear that the only thanksgiving we could dredge up would prove to be like the hypocrite who prays, “Lord, I thank thee that I am not like other people…” (see Luke chapter 18). But I began to think it was because we didn’t spend much time counting our blessings.

Years ago, this awkward silence following the invitation of our thanksgivings began to bother me. Here we all were, at the Eucharist, the Great Thanksgiving, and when asked to name those things for which we were, in fact, grateful, no one said anything. However, I decided that because I can’t force anyone to name out loud something that they’re thankful for just to make me feel less bothered about it, I would try to reflect in my own actions the change I wanted to see and hear in other’s prayers. So I started preparing a list of things for which I could give thanks without relying on a spur-of-the-moment burst of grateful sentimentality, and I landed on a simple idea: No matter what was going on in my life, I would always be vocally thankful for my wife and children, even if I felt in that moment that they weren’t feeling very thankful for me!

At pretty much every Mass for well over a decade now, whenever I have been at a church service where our thanksgivings were invited “silently or aloud,” I have always tried to say, whether softly or loudly, “I give thanks for Anne, Margaret, and Andrew.” Often, I tack on “Rich and Linda,” Anne’s parents, as well, because they’ve been such a central part of my life and of our children’s lives. If the intercessor is patient and gives us more than a couple of seconds in which to vocalize our thanks, I will also add Anna, my sister, and her husband, Jason, who do so much to take care of my ailing father, David, who is in memory care in California, whom I remember when praying for the sick.

If I have even more space to give thanks, I name the people who make it possible for us to be together in worship at that moment: staff members and volunteers and lay leaders, the congregation, et cetera, et cetera. Because I get to edit the boilerplate language for thanksgivings, I try to build that into the script, as for instance we do currently when the intercessor reads, “I bid your prayers for God’s blessings upon all people; and we give thanks to God for the people, neighbours, and friends of this parish, and especially for all those present with us in person or via livestream; our newcomers and visitors this morning, both near and far; and for all other thanksgivings we now name, silently or aloud ______. May God’s abiding presence be with us always, and may we be a blessing to all people.”

It’s particularly important to me to remember the three overlapping “constituencies” that St. Thomas’s serves in the Venn diagram of our people, neighbours, and friends, to whom this letter is addressed each week, recognizing as well that since the pandemic, our newcomers and visitors have included people who have never set foot inside our door, some of whom have never been to Toronto or anywhere else in Canada, for that matter. I am profoundly grateful for those who make a virtual pilgrimage to St. Thomas’s without ever leaving their homes, even as I hope they will some day be able to do so, and I pray that St. Thomas’s may indeed be a blessing to all people.

In our corporate worship, it’s the “______” that provides for the most capacious prayer, provided we don’t rush it. When I’m in charge of leading the prayers, I’ve had to train myself to be comfortable with an awkward silence, because sometimes it takes a bit of awkwardness to get our brains to pay attention, to start thinking about what we’ve just been invited to do.

This is the third Anglo-Catholic parish I’ve served as a priest. In the other two parishes, when I arrived, no one ever named any thanksgivings out loud unless they were already written into the script. It was always pro forma. I’m not a huge fan of extemporaneous prayer, to be honest. I was raised an Evangelical in a “We just want to thank you, Lord, we just want to…” tradition of prayer, which often struck me as far more artificial than reading prayers out of a book that have been prayed for centuries by holy and not-so-holy men and women alike. My favourite forms of corporate intercession don’t provide any fill-in-the-blank moments at all, because they’re the easiest. But prayer shouldn’t necessarily be easy. Maybe when we’re invited to give thanks we should pause and ask ourselves, “Am I actually thankful for anything today?”

Beginning this Advent, we will be priming the pump of thanksgivings, so to speak, by focusing on anniversaries centred on the sacramental life of the church. We will not give thanks for birthdays as a matter of course, but we will remember and give thanks on baptismal anniversaries, confirmations, wedding anniversaries, and ordination anniversaries. We will be compiling these thanksgivings from our database. If you would like to opt out of being prayed for by name on the anniversary of your baptism, for instance, just let Christine know at office@saintthomas.on.ca and we will try to ensure that your privacy is respected. But we do want to raise up the importance of baptism as our birthday into the church, and if you think the database doesn’t include your baptism or confirmation date, feel free to provide us with that.

Otherwise, when next you are invited to share your thanksgivings, silently or aloud, even if you’re not comfortable saying anything out loud, do me a favour, if you would, and come to church mindful of one person, place, or thing for which your heart is truly grateful, and offer it up before the throne of God when invited to do so in the silence of your prayers, and if the Spirit moves, give voice to it, as well. Over time, perhaps, we will begin to sense a church that is more palpably and audibly thankful for all the many blessings of this life, and in our awareness of our gratitude, are better equipped to be a blessing to all people.

Yours in Christ’s service,

N.J.A. Humphrey+
VIII Rector

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CONFESSIONS IN ADVENT

Christmas Day is a mere two weeks away, and the clergy are available by appointment to meet with you to make your confession in preparation for this great feast, so “that we, without shame or fear, may rejoice to behold his appearing,” as the proper preface for the season of Advent promises us. If you have never made your confidential confession before, or have never experienced the liberating power of the sacrament of reconciliation in the way it is intended as a gift from God, you are warmly invited to do so this year. The easiest way to make an appointment for a confession with Fr. Humphrey is to visit rector.youcanbook.me at your convenience to choose a time during his office hours on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. You can also arrange a time to meet on any day of the week except for Mondays via email: frhumphrey@stthomas.on.ca. Likewise, Fr. D’Angelo may be reached via frdangelo@stthomas.on.ca and Fr. Shire via frshire@stthomas.on.ca. Any of the clergy who serve as celebrants of our weekday Masses would also be happy to be of assistance, and the parish clergy can easily put you in touch with any priest whose contact information you do not already have. Fr. D’Angelo is compiling a list of area clergy who are available to serve in this capacity, and all members of St. Thomas’s are encouraged to make their confessions to a priest prior to Christmas and Easter every year, and at other times as may be advisable for the comfort and edification of their souls. —Fr. Humphrey

The University of Toronto Schools: Inspiring Vision & Leadership

Dear People, Neighbours, and Friends of St. Thomas’s,

According to a 2018 article, our neighbour across the street, the University of Toronto Schools, was founded in 1910, and its graduates “include 55 recipients of the Order of Canada, 20 Rhodes Scholars, 15 Olympians and two Nobel Laureates.” If you stand on the sidewalk, this is the view from the church (and several of the rectory windows).

As you can see, we have a lovely view of the addition being built onto the back end of the UTS edifice that fronts Bloor Street.

On weekdays, the sounds of construction are a daily reality for us, and (most of the time) it’s music to my ears. I love watching what our neighbours are accomplishing right across the street. The vision and perseverance, despite the pandemic, that its leadership, both staff and volunteers, have shown is, in a word, inspiring.

The construction is being funded by the UTS’s Building the Future campaign, which had a modest goal of raising sixty million dollars. How much did they end up raising? So far, $61.2M. And people are still giving. Why? Because they believe in the future of that school.

When I learned that the school administrator who serves as the director of the campaign was a member of a colleague’s parish, I asked for an introduction. On Wednesday, I sat down with Martha Drake in her UTS office to learn more about our neighbour. I knew a lot of facts from their beautiful website, but nothing beats a conversation with a human being.

Now, it would be natural to assume that a private school that’s been around for over a century would have many generous and deep-pocketed alumni/ae, parents, trustees, and friends. But compared to places like Upper Canada College and Bishop Strachan School, when it comes to capacity for heavy lifts like a sixty million dollar capital campaign, UTS had to contend with the fact that a couple of decades ago, the provincial support that had funded it for eighty years or so was eliminated through government budget cuts, and financial support from its eponymous founding body, the University of Toronto, ended in 2010. So UTS has only existed as a fully independent private school for just over a decade, despite its century-old history of producing some of the greatest contributors to the professional, scientific, and academic life of Toronto, of Canada, and of the world.

 As such, when Jim Fleck of the Class of 1949 (do the math on how young he is) agreed to chair this campaign, he saw that the project was akin to founding a new school. He wrote a brilliant appeal about “a school in search of its founders,” seeking twenty founders capable of giving at least a million dollars each. In the end, they got their twenty: this included seventeen gifts from individuals, at least one of whom wished to remain an anonymous founder, and three group gifts: one in honour of a beloved faculty member, another from the earliest women to attend UTS, which went co-ed in 1973 (the year Robarts Library was built and, coincidentally, the year I was born), and one other (I think) which I can’t remember. (If I’ve gotten any of my facts wrong, I’m happy to correct the record next week.)

 Martha imparted some wisdom on what might be helpful to St. Thomas’s in articulating our own vision for our future, and I left looking forward to getting to know her better as well as more about the school itself. Despite the ideal commute, it’s not where either of my children are going to end up (as far as I can tell), so I had no impetus to drop by the Admissions Office on my way out the front doors, but when I got to the lobby, I was struck by three paintings above three doorways, presumably leading into an auditorium, which are the first thing one encounters upon entering.

On the left, a figure in Middle Eastern garb is pointing as he speaks. Is he a prophet? Jesus? It appears he is some Biblical figure, because the middle painting depicts monks illuminating manuscripts. Clearly, they are passing on the wisdom of the ages imparted by the figure on the left. Then, on the right, I saw a painting of two men examining a page of text, as an industrious lad works the printing press. Above, on the ceiling, a plaster ornament of grape clusters crossed the hall, to my mind a Eucharistic image, though of course not necessarily so.

In that moment, I was struck by the important role that religion has had in preserving and transmitting knowledge down through the millennia, not only of a scriptural nature, but across all known disciplines. It is no surprise to me that Charles Darwin, for instance, was the son of a vicar. Those who are attuned to the mysteries of life will always be in search of deeper insights, regardless of the field. I was glad to see that the original founders of the University of Toronto Schools had seen fit to enshrine this fact in these three paintings, because progress is rooted in tradition.

 I would like to think that any progress worthy of the name at St. Thomas’s would likewise be rooted in the goodly heritage of which we are called to be stewards. I’m reminded of the words of the great Yale history professor Jaroslav Pelikan. As the omniscient Wikipedia has it, “His 1983 Jefferson Lecture, The Vindication of Tradition, included an often quoted one liner, which he elaborated in a 1989 interview in U.S. News & World Report. He said: ‘Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Tradition lives in conversation with the past, while remembering where we are and when we are and that it is we who have to decide. Traditionalism supposes that nothing should ever be done for the first time, so all that is needed to solve any problem is to arrive at the supposedly unanimous testimony of this homogenized tradition.’”

As we look to our own future, may we be guided not only by best practices in stewardship, but by the wisdom grounded in our tradition, which provides the central reason why we are pursuing greater accessibility to our mission and ministry through our own physical plant improvements in the first place: Because our heritage is our future.

Yours in Christ’s service,

N.J.A. Humphrey+
VIII Rector

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Thank You to All Volunteers!

Sunday is not only the Second Sunday of Advent, but coincidentally International Volunteer Day. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our volunteers who make our mission and ministry possible. The time and energy you invest in our community does not go unnoticed. And because contributions to our common life are entirely voluntary, as well, I would like to thank everyone who has given anything from single Loonie to hundreds of thousands of them for your stewardship of St. Thomas’s. Without the people, neighbours, and friends of St. Thomas’s who share so much of their time, talent, and treasure, we would not have survived the pandemic, and more importantly, we would not have been able to help others weather the spiritual and physical challenges this pandemic has imposed on so many of us, especially the most vulnerable.

As we look ahead to another year of voluntary love and labour, I give thanks to everyone who has chosen to grow spiritually and share materially through this parish community. God bless us, every one. —Fr. Humphrey

All's Well That Ends Well

Dear People, Neighbours, and Friends of St. Thomas’s,

Ah, the new normal! What times we live in; times I never in my wildest imagination thought would come to pass. My in-laws, Rich and Linda Stone, arrived on Wednesday afternoon from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, having received negative COVID test results prior to boarding their commercial flight to Toronto. Rich was also “randomly selected” for a second COVID test after they landed. That evening, we received word that a student at one of our children’s schools had tested positive for COVID. Better yet, it was someone our child eats lunch with every day!

We decided nonetheless to Keep Calm & Carry On, and proceeded to have a lovely traditional Norman Rockwell–style American Thanksgiving feast in the rectory dining room on Thursday. It was the first time my family had all sat down to a meal together in that room, though Andrew has gotten in the habit of “taking breakfast in the dining room.” Since we had been unable to spend our final New England Thanksgiving feast together (except via a brief Zoom conference call), it was lovely to have the family together in one place again. We had a grand time.

Celebrating American Thanksgiving with Anne's parents. Note in the background the Jack Bush painting “Easter Procession,” the first artwork to be hung in the rectory.

In the limited time we had together, we laid plans to do a lot of things around the house, and some things around town. But then on Friday morning, our child who lunches with the unfortunate school chum also came down with some suspicious symptoms. So that child stayed home from school and we went to get father-child COVID tests at Toronto Western Hospital. I decided it was prudent for me to get tested, because John Lawson’s funeral was scheduled for Saturday afternoon, and on Sunday I was to preach, looking forward to singing for the first time ever with this congregation, and I was scheduled to officiate at our first live Lessons & Carols service since 2019. I suddenly saw myself confined to the rectory on Advent 1, and spending all that time in the house while others sang for joy in the church was not a happy thought.

All’s well that ends well, though, because our tests did come back negative, and the nurse advised that since the last time our child had interacted with the person who tested positive was over a week ago, a negative test would augur well, and we could be much more confident than if the exposure were more recent. Add to this the fact that we are all fully vaccinated, and we had an extra statistical probability going in our favour. Of course, tests can be wrong, and fully vaccinated people have been infected – it’s all a matter of timing, et cetera, et cetera – but in going about our usual routines, observing the usual precautions, we were reassured that we would not be taking any steps that could be judged imprudent given the times we live in, the seemingly endless Coronatide that this decade has been observing for far too long.

Thankfully, our child’s pal is doing just fine by all reports, and the two friends look forward to resuming their mealtime routines soon enough. But this is the new normal, isn’t it? It happens all the time. One’s plans can suddenly be halted by a sniffle or a headache until we have religiously observed a newfangled and thoroughly secular Liturgy of the Hours, a vigil by the side of the computer or smartphone, reverently entering our birthdates, test dates, and medical record numbers every hour on the hour in the hope that our prayers will be answered, and all shall be well. What times these are!

Of course, even had we gotten back unfavourable results, as people of faith, we believe that our times are in God’s hands. Advent is about the redeeming of time for people who have been blighted with sin and death for eons. All the plagues of history cannot compare to the One of whom we can say, “and though this body be destroyed, yet shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself and mine eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger.” Those words from the Book of Common Prayer are quoted on the dedication page of Kara N. Slade’s new book, The Fullness of Time: Jesus Christ, Science, and Modernity, which my father-in-law hand-delivered to me upon his arrival. Its author is a friend with a colourful history: a one-time NASA scientist (with a doctorate in mechanical engineering), she earned a second doctorate in Christian theology and ethics and is now involved in teaching and chaplaincy work in Princeton, New Jersey. The book got blurbed by Joseph Mangina of Wycliffe College, so it must be good. I think I shall treat it as my Advent devotional…If I have the time, that is. Perhaps you’ll want to take some time to read it, or some other devotional, such as the one recommended by Jess Nee below. There’s no time like the present, after all.

Yours in Christ’s service,

N.J.A. Humphrey+
VIII Rector

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Every Advent, I look for a new (or old) devotional to take me through the season. This year I was particularly excited to see the release of “Awaiting the King: Reflections for Advent 2021,” written by Anglicans across Canada (including our former bishop, Jenny Andison) and edited by Jonathan Turtle. I invite anyone who is looking for something to help them more deeply enter into the season to join me in working through this daily devotional. Download your free PDF copy here. – Jess Nee, Warden

Letter to the Editor

Dear People, Neighbours, and Friends of St. Thomas’s,

This past week, I received one of the most gratifying compliments ever given. A parishioner wrote, “I must say that you are a very unusual priest. In my experience, members of the clergy don’t like to be challenged, especially by lay folk!”

This was in response to how I replied to what might best be described as a “Letter to the Editor” taking exception to some of the things I spouted off about in last week’s edition of the Thurible, except that, appropriately, its author sent her criticisms only to me rather than to everyone else but me! It was refreshingly direct.

I asked her whether I might indeed publish it as a Letter to the Editor, but she did not want her name associated with it publicly. Instead, she gave me permission to excerpt from it with my own replies interspersed, as I think it stands as a good example of the sort of teaching and learning many of us want to foster at St. Thomas’s, where the priest is both the teacher and the student, especially since (as we saw previously with another parishioner’s erudition on medieval liturgy and the placement of the Nicene Creed therein), many, perhaps even most, of my parishioners could certainly teach me a thing or two! And, God willing, I can be a good teacher for you, trusting that if there’s anything good or edifying (or even mildly amusing) that I can provide, you will take it in the spirit of Christian charity with which I intend to give it.

Rather than using circumlocutions to honour this parishioner’s desire for privacy, I am going to re-name her Sophia. Further, I’m going to be coy and say that you ought not to assume that “Sophia” is a woman. Or perhaps she is. In any event, as I wrote to her, “I want people to know that when they do engage with what I write, they will be heard, and not in a condescending manner, but in a way that engages substantively with the content… To paraphrase the Psalter, ‘when a wise woman reproves me, it is kindness’” (cf. Psalm 141:5). Sophia began: 

Dear Fr. Humphrey,

Like you, I do not possess academic expertise concerning the particular forms of worship contained in the 1962 Canadian Book of Common Prayer. However, I must take issue with some of the statements that you made in your letter of last Saturday.

First, I must question your categorizing the omission of some of the imprecatory Psalms or parts thereof in the Canadian BCP as being on par with other productions that have omitted all references to the Holy Trinity or to miraculous occurrences.

Surely you will have found by now that there are still plenty of imprecatory verses left in the Canadian Psalter. To cite just a few examples: 31:20 “Let the ungodly be put to confusion, and be put to silence in the grave”, 35:6 “Let their way be dark and slippery, with the angel of the Lord pursuing them”, 59:13 “Consume them in thy wrath, consume them, that they be no more”, 83:17 “Let them be confounded and dismayed for ever; let them be put to shame and perish”, 129:6 “Let them be even as the grass growing upon the house-tops, which withereth afore it be plucked up”.

To this I replied (and I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t use quotation marks for my own prior words and simply recount it here as the dialogue it was):

I think my letter suffered from the pressures of being written without time for additional reflection and editing. Such is the nature of a weekly “column,” which is essentially what my letter is. It’s not always op-ed, of course, but since my aim is to get people thinking, or rather to get thinking people more engaged in the common life of St. Thomas’s, I’m more than willing to be corrected publicly so that I have the honour of thanking that person and showing that we are—or at least aim to be—a learning community. As to your points specifically, here are a few reflections:

I think you’re quite right that the rhetoric I used drew a false equivalency. The examples you give … demonstrate that convincingly. What I did want to raise in the reader’s mind was not only the question of whether the BCP is guilty of this tendency, but to open up the question of to what degree we might ourselves be guilty of this in the way we read scripture, mentally editing out material we find repulsive or vexing, rather than engaging with it and asking where God is living and active in the text. Had I the time to reflect and edit, I hope that is the tack I would have taken. As you write:

The question is not one of wholesale excision of imprecation, but of restraining the degree of imprecation expressed.

You are spot on here. This is the real question.

Let me make it clear that I entirely agree that the deletion of these imprecatory passages was a mistake that ought to be reversed.

However, I disagree with your imputation of “the rationalist tendency to exclude anything that offends one’s own preconceived notions of what is, and is not, credible” to the compilers of the Canadian BCP. As I have pointed out above, imprecation per se was evidently not at all incredible to them.

I replied: My imputation was probably an unfair one to make regarding the compilers. I do wish to challenge us to engage in our own process of evaluating the degree to which we ourselves tend to exclude anything based on our preconceived notions, something we all do, but are more or less aware of depending on the circumstances. The extent that we are open to others challenging our preconceived notions is a measurement of our desire for continued learning, and God willing, growth in charity and holiness of life.

I also disagree with your contention that the compilers thought that “nice Christians are incapable of unseemly thoughts, feelings, and desires”, and that “the victors in the war also wanted to reassure themselves … that they (we) could never be so inhumane”. From my point of view, I consider this interpretation to be extremely unlikely. When work began on the 1962 Canadian BCP in the 1950s, many of the generation involved in it would have had first-hand experience of fighting in a world war.  Many of them would have personally witnessed horrors and atrocities committed not only by the enemy, but by combatants on their own side. It seems inconceivable to me that those of that generation could have had any illusions about the general “niceness” of people.

Yes, upon reflection, I agree that this accusation is misplaced, and entirely unfair.

My view is that the reason for excising certain verses of the imprecatory psalms was that they would have evoked, all too unsettlingly, hatreds and passions of which the readers would have had personal experiences. Those coming out of a war scenario would have had been all too well aware of the dark undercurrents running through the human soul. C.S. Lewis, writing in 1958 (quoted in the essay by Fr. Chris Dow that you cited), was clearly familiar with such emotions, since he had to admonish the readers of his book that praying the imprecatory Psalms was not a licence for indulging in one’s own private hatreds.

The above points come across very well in the Chris Dow essay, and also in the brief excerpt from a paper that was passed on to me from my seminarian [Daniel McCarley, showing that these concerns about the imprecatory psalms date all the way back to English Anglican reflection on the Boer War and World War I.]

In contrast, it was in a later generation, in the late 1970s and early 1980s when the BAS was being produced, that a sunny view of humanity was actually prevalent. It was a time of economic prosperity, comparatively peaceful conditions worldwide, and general confidence, optimism and complacency. It is true that the BAS does contain the Psalter unabridged, but on page 701 in the introduction it is admitted that “not every psalm or section of a psalm has been suggested for public recitation in the various lectionaries in this book”. So the Psalter has in fact been “censored” in the BAS as well as in the BCP; just more quietly.  

I agree, and I appreciate your pointing out that censorship can take an even more pernicious form that the explicit form reflected in the 1962 BCP. In many ways, one has to admire the intellectual honesty reflected in the 1962.

And so, dear readers, such was the nature of the refutation and the retractions I happily offer for your reflection this week. I can’t wait to read the emails taking me to task for this letter!

Yours in Christ’s service,

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What Happened to Psalm 58?

Dear People, Neighbours, and Friends of St. Thomas’s,

As a newcomer to the liturgy of the Anglican Church of Canada, I do not have any academic grounding or seminary training in the peculiarities of the various Canadian usages enshrined in the 1962 Book of Common Prayer (BCP) or the 1985 Book of Alternative Services (BAS). Thankfully, I happen to be supervising a Wycliffe College seminarian, Daniel McCarley, who is also coming fresh to the Canadian liturgical scene, but who has the advantage of undertaking coursework in liturgics with Prof. Jesse Billett of Trinity College.

Last Tuesday, as Daniel and I prepared for Low Mass, he mentioned that Psalm 58 was not in the 1962 BCP. I was gobsmacked. And I must admit, I wondered whether Daniel might have misheard something in class, until he overcame my skepticism by showing me pages 400–401 in the BCP. Sure enough, there were Psalms 57 and 59, but Psalm 58 was nowhere to be found.

I was reminded of two other cut-and-paste jobs that are regarded derisively by liturgically sound Episcopalians in the United States: The Book of Common Prayer as published by the Unitarian King’s Chapel, Boston in 1785, which omitted all references to the Holy Trinity; and the Jefferson Bible of 1820, wherein the former third president of the United States excised the miracles of Jesus and most mentions of the supernatural.

In the case of the 1962 BCP psalter, the imprecatory psalms were omitted in whole or in part. (See BCP p. xlix for the specific citations.) On the one hand, it was shocking to me that the framers of the 1962 Canadian BCP should do such violence to the text when the framers of the much more radically revisionist 1979 American BCP didn’t dare attempt such a thing. (Usually, it’s the Americans, like me, who are unafraid of liturgical hubris.) On the other hand, it seemed entirely consistent with the rationalist tendency to exclude anything that offends one’s own preconceived notions of what is, and is not, credible.

Further research into this matter turned up an excellent article by the Rev’d Chris Dow of this diocese on the Canadian Prayer Book Society’s website, entitled Should They Be Wiped Out of the Book of the Living? Restoring the Omitted Portions of the Imprecatory Psalms, which was posted on July 13, 2021, just three days before my family and I moved to Canada. In it, he anticipates my own most withering critiques of this pernicious assault on the psalter, and reveals that, thankfully, one can now restore those omitted portions through a simple setting incorporated into the Common Prayer Canada app, which I myself use in praying the Daily Office. Sadly, this does not solve the problem for those of us who are stuck with the print version of “the psalter as it is appointed to be said or sung in churches” (cf. BCP p. 331), but it does give us one option for praying the entire psalter.

This free, user-friendly app automatically generates the daily BCP services for any day of the year, including the Psalms, Bible lessons, collects and seasonal variations.

And why would we want to pray the whole psalter in the first place? When I was living with a group of Benedictine monks in upstate New York, Fr. Martin Boler, O.S.B., the community’s prior, said in a talk that the thing he most loved about the psalter was the fact that it expressed the full range of human emotions. The psalter gives us permission to bring before God our entire selves, including the ugly, seemingly unredeemable bits, the parts that we want to hide not just from others, but from ourselves, and lays them bare at the feet of the One from whom no secrets are hid.

It is a simple fact that human beings feel what we feel when we feel it, and the psalter is an unvarnished, unsanitized version that reflects all the feelings that human beings, in fact, feel. This fact does not mean that God approves of our desire for revenge, for instance, nor that the desire for revenge is morally justifiable. But it does mean that God is less shocked by our uglier emotions than we are, and in fact knows how to redeem them—if we are honest to God about them. It is this whitewashing of human experience that is insidious, as if nice Christians are incapable of unseemly thoughts, feelings, and desires, which simply isn’t true. God doesn’t want us to hide from ourselves or from God, but to offer ourselves, our souls and bodies to God, warts and all. The imprecatory psalms of the psalter help us do that, and with gusto.

The wider context for what sparked the movement to excise the imprecatory psalms was humanity’s revulsion in the wake of the Great War. And after two world wars, we finally began to take seriously “man’s inhumanity to man,” to use somewhat dated language. But in taking it seriously, the victors in the war also wanted to reassure themselves, I think, that they (we) could never be so inhumane. The Holocaust was terrible, but the firebombing of Dresden and the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki put paid to those notions, at least as far as I’m concerned. And yet, we want to think of ourselves as basically good people. And in Canada, we want to think of ourselves as nice, polite people, too, living in a place and time where the imprecatory psalms are completely out of place and thus should be relegated to the distant past, and forgotten.

But we are not basically good people. Tell the families of residential school survivors that we are basically good people. Tell the mothers who lost sons in the Great War, and every war before or since. Sometimes, we deserve to have the imprecatory psalms prayed against us, and sometimes nothing can express our own anger, frustration, and sense of cosmic injustice better than these psalms.

As we approach Remembrance Sunday, with its beautiful poppy wreaths and moving hymns, let us recognize that the imprecatory psalms have a proper place even within our own prayer lives, because sometimes life is nasty, brutish, and short, and we have no one else to blame but ourselves. And sometimes life is nasty, brutish, and short, and we need to tell God about those who are oppressing us, and wonder why God doesn’t do something about it now that will satisfy our visceral desire for revenge.

But thanks be to God, who assures us, in the words of the Apostle, that grace still abounds, even in the aftermath of great wars and tragedies: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, ‘For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Even when we are at our worst, God’s love is there. Even when we are at our ugliest, the redemptive and reconciling grace of God is constantly at work, whether we want it or not. And as we become more honest with ourselves and others about who we are, and who we aren’t, we will, by grace, come to a deeper appreciation of whose we are, warts and all: We are God’s.

Yours in Christ’s service,

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Daily Office Officiants & Participants

One of the things I cherish most about St. Thomas’s has been the opportunity to begin and end my day in corporate prayer. We’ve moved towards the recitation of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer in the Quire, in part because there’s a stall with a brass plate that reads “Rector.” I’ve taken the liberty of putting a seat cushion in the stall (and, to be fair, I’ve put one in the stall opposite, assigned to the Associate, Preacher, or Daily Office Officiant, depending on the occasion), and I find that it’s a rather cozy place. The stalls are also conveniently socially distanced, so there’s no worry about violating any of the many rules and regulations we are endeavouring in good faith to follow.

As we approach the new liturgical year on Advent 1, the 28th of November, I encourage you to consider whether you might be able to join us on one or more days, at one or more services. They tend to take fifteen to twenty minutes, so I’ve come to think of them as “punctuation marks” in my day. (Sometimes Morning Prayer is a question mark, and sometimes it’s an exclamation point. Evening Prayer tends to be more of a semicolon than a period.) Or perhaps “bookends” would be more apt, though it’s perfectly permissible to attend one Office in a day if that’s what one’s schedule allows.

While we are always looking for lay people who would be willing to be trained to serve as officiants (complete with a cozy stall of one’s own), whether regularly or as substitutes, I particularly welcome any companion in prayer, whether that companion comes regularly or only occasionally. For “wherever two or three are gathered,” Christ is indeed in the midst of us. — Fr. Humphrey

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Their sacrifice will not be forgotten. The First World War Memorial Baptistery on Remembrance Day. Thank you to Bob Kennedy, Lindsay Squire, and Ernie Chamberlain for making this lovely display possible.

There’s No Shame in It

Dear People, Neighbours, and Friends of St. Thomas’s,

“There’s no shame in it.” Whenever I hear this phrase, it’s usually in reference to something that in fact does feel shameful. It’s meant to be a reassuring phrase, and I’ve used it myself, but I sometimes wonder if, in doing so, I’m implicitly telling someone not to feel what they are, in fact, feeling.

Here’s a random example, apropos of nothing: Bedbugs. There’s no shame in it. I truly believe this. As Gord Walsh writes below, “these bugs have no favourites, whether in gender, race, religion, or socio-economic status.” And yet, I know I would be embarrassed if my own home were infested.

While good housekeeping does, I’m sure, help keep these critters at bay, they don’t care how tidy our homes are. They are equal opportunity parasites. And so it’s important to recognize and affirm all the feeling we do have about this (to say the least) uncomfortable subject.

So I don’t particularly relish the thought of advertising to the whole wide world through this email that St. Thomas’s is struggling with this challenge, on top of the pandemic! Frankly, it’s embarrassing, because let’s face it, bedbugs are icky.

At the same time, I firmly believe in the importance of modelling transparency when it comes to things like this. Honesty is indeed the best policy. Aside from the fact that the Ninth Commandment requires that we not bear false witness, our relationships with God, our neighbours, ourselves, and all of creation cannot be fundamentally healthy unless these relationships are marked by unvarnished honesty. This is why Bp. Andrew Asbil’s letter marking Treaties Recognition Week is so important, for instance. Because only the Truth will set us free.

Another area in which honesty is essential is our physical health, including our mental health. We cannot live in denial or think that we can handle everything life throws our way on our own. Those of us who have diabetes need insulin; those of us who can get vaccinated ought to get vaccinated; and when we struggle with depression, anxiety, or addiction, only honesty will get us the treatment and help we need.

Whether honesty about our health, openness in our pursuit of Truth & Reconciliation, or transparency in parish communications, we find that even when the truth hurts, it can lead to healing and resurrection life.

At St. Thomas’s, we gather week by week to offer ourselves, our souls, and bodies in worship of God. We seek to worship God in the beauty of holiness, in Spirit and in Truth. And when we do approach the throne of grace with boldness, bringing every part of who we are to God in Christ Jesus, the answer we get when we show God who we really are, bedbugs and all, is “I can work with that. I’ve seen worse.”

God works redemptively in our lives when we let God. But it all starts with honesty about who we are—and who we aren’t. While I would love to have a carefully curated public profile that emphasized what a flagship Anglo-Catholic parish we are that conveniently crops out the creepy-crawlies that currently plague us, that wouldn’t be honest.

What do you need to be honest about with God, with yourself, with your neighbour? We all take refuge in denial as a coping strategy from time to time. (At least you do. I’ve never been in denial. Nope. Not once.) This doesn’t mean that we have to let it all hang out, to share “TMI” (Too Much Information). Privacy and boundaries are healthy things to maintain. But if we are trying to put a brave face on a bleak situation or denying that there’s a problem, we will just get stuck there.

But the Truth sets us free. And that is Good News indeed. For when it comes to the Truth, there really is no shame in it.

Yours in Christ’s service,

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An Update on Bedbugs
“From plague, pestilence, and famine…Good Lord, deliver us.”

This line from the Great Litany, which we will hear on the First Sunday of Advent, has been in my mind of late. So far, we have not suffered from any famine, but the whole world is all too familiar with plague, and recently, St. Thomas’s has had to add to our trials and tribulations pestilence, as well. The wardens and I are committed to a policy of transparency in this regard, communicating regularly in the faith that the Lord will indeed deliver us from both plague and pestilence, and, we hope, prevent any sort of famine, whether physical or spiritual, from coming near our dwellings.

Gord Walsh from The Hug Group Pest Control has been managing our bedbug challenge, which is now known to affect those areas of the building where cassocks and other items of clothing are kept. Specifically, bedbugs were found in the vestry and the acolyte room. In the vestry, we found evidence that the carpet in the room was a trouble spot. Thankfully, we already had planned on removing it, which Rob and Anna Kennedy, who were briefed on how to remove it safely for their own health, did prior to last week’s Benedictine Day. On Wednesday, following All Saints’ and All Souls’, Gord came in to treat the vestry and acolyte room and to set out lures in the vesting rooms for the choir. No bedbugs have been detected in those rooms, but since cassocks are stored in those rooms, they have been identified as areas of concern.

We have instituted a policy that for the immediate future, cassocks and other items such as surplices, albs, and amices worn by acolytes should be checked out to each acolyte so that they are not sharing any items. Each acolyte is responsible for laundering and bringing his or her items back and forth to the church. Plastic bags are provided for acolytes for storing any outerwear while they are serving, into which the cassocks and such can be placed and brought home without potentially spreading the problem. The key way to control the spread is through putting all clothing into a dryer on high heat for an hour or so. This kills eggs and insects alike. Clothes can be put in the dryer prior to being washed, washed if needed, and put in the dryer again, thereby effectively sanitizing them between uses.

Clergy are following a similar protocol, and this policy will likely be implemented in the coming weeks with regard to choir cassocks and surplices, certainly if the lures detect anything in those vesting rooms. We will continue to monitor and expand our inspection to other parts of the physical plant until we are confident that St. Thomas’s is not a vector for spreading this problem.

In closing, our exterminator, Gord Walsh, writes:

The likelihood of coming into contact with bedbugs has significantly increased in the last ten years or so. Public transportation, hotel rooms, work environments all are known places these bugs tend to gather. The bugs are attracted to items that have on them the scent of our bodies: towels in the bathroom, bedsheets, pillows, and many other items.

There are many supports available to help control and eradicate bedbugs: pest control companies can advise and offer various services (call around and see what’s on offer), invest in good-quality mattress encasements to protect your sleep set, use good-quality commercial lures, which trick these bugs into being captured and eliminated.

And most importantly, always be aware that these bugs have no favourites, whether in gender, race, religion, or socio-economic status.

Reflections on Re-opening
As provincial and city regulations change, we are slowly returning to normal. We wish that it weren’t as slow as it is, but it is what it is.

Recently, the Bishop issued a couple of letters that gave some indication of what steps we might take in our worship. Since there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, the staff and I have tried in good faith to figure out how the new normal, which is increasingly looking like the old normal, can reasonably be incorporated into our Sunday mornings together.

I had the opportunity to address this with the Bishop this past week, and was immensely relieved to be reassured that he trusts the clergy and lay leadership of the diocese to make decisions that are in compliance with civil law and the canons of the church, and he has no interest in micromanaging the re-opening process.

So as you see the clergy and acolytes changing back to how things used to be, know that each change has been carefully considered with the intention of obeying the law and the canons. If you see us engaging in practices that cross the line of what you understand to be currently allowable, let us know. One of the strange things about emerging from this pandemic is how transgressive the smallest things can feel. Nothing we do in church is intended to push you outside your comfort zone. But if you find that to be the case, the best thing to do is to talk with the clergy about it. We won’t always be able to quote chapter and verse from the latest regulations to reassure you that everything is by the book, but we do in fact intend to do things by the book. And by the Good Book, too!

— Fr. Humphrey

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BELOW: On Friday, November 5, a new subfloor and hardwood floor were laid in the vestry with great skill and efficiency. The next step will be painting, followed in due course by new lighting fixtures, new window coverings, and a new door off the hallway behind the organ chamber. (The old door would not have been able to clear the height of the new floor. Details, details...)

Ora et Labora

Dear People, Neighbours, and Friends of St. Thomas’s,

Before I came to St. Thomas’s, I had never heard the term “Benedictine Day” to describe what everywhere else is usually called a “parish work day” or “clean-up day.” But the name immediately made sense to me, because I spent summers in college and seminary living with a community of Roman Catholic Benedictine monks in upstate New York. So I not only know a lot about what’s commonly referred to as “Benedictine Spirituality”; I’ve lived it.

The term “Benedictine Day” immediately calls to mind the official motto of the Benedictine order: Ora et Labora, Prayer and Work. St. Benedict, the founder of Western monasticism, wrote his Rule and in it laid out the pattern of life that a community of monks would follow. The monks were to pray seven times a day throughout the day, and in between praying, they would work, preferably with their hands. Farming was of course a big part of this, but so was scholarship. The monastery I lived in had a large library, but it was mainly a working sheep farm, run by the monks themselves. But whatever sort of labour the monks undertook, it was always to be integrated with their life of prayer. Prayer and work are not separate realms. They are two parts of a unified whole.

This came home to me most powerfully when I helped separate the lambs from the ewes at the end of the summer. The sheep were herded down the dirt road and into a chute where they would be vaccinated, checked for disease, shorn for wool, and the lambs would be weaned from their mothers. Henceforth the lambs would live in their own enclosure, until they, too, were ready to become mothers. As for the boy lambs, some were chosen to join the rams who would keep up the stock of lambs coming every year, or they would be fattened up for eventual slaughter. Along with the wool and yarn from the ewes, these sheep would sustain the health of the community both financially and physically. (I ate a lot of lamb over those summers).

But what did any of that have to do with prayer? Everything! Most of the services were centred on praying the psalms, and we were constantly hearing in the other scriptures as well about sheep. I could not watch the lambs being sorted without thinking of the parable of the sheep and the goats. I could not look at the lambs who were being shorn or those who would be fattened up without hearing in my head the words of Isaiah, “Like a sheep being led to the slaughter or a lamb that is silent before her shearers, he did not open his mouth.” (Isaiah 53:7) The scriptures came alive for me in a new, often visceral, way that first summer.

Did the same thing happen to those of us who gathered for the Benedictine Day at St. Thomas’s? Maybe, maybe not. But we did participate in the deeply spiritual practice of joining our prayer and our work together simply by caring for our place of worship. And, of course, the daily Mass was celebrated at ten o’clock before the day got underway, so we had a chance for some common prayer before our common work began.

I am so grateful for the ora et labora that we share as a community, day in, day out. Every minute we have to pray and work together, even if it involves a rollaway dumpster, is time well spent.

Yours in Christ’s service,

Message from the Rector

Dear People, Neighbours, and Friends of St. Thomas’s,

This weekend, I’m happy to present a few brief updates and scattered thoughts on just a few of the many things that are in the works. In no particular order, here are some items of interest and random reflections for your reading pleasure.

All Creatures Great & Small
Two pest control companies performed thorough inspections on-site this past week, and neither found any evidence of a bedbug infestation. To be on the safe side, the second company, which specializes in the detection and eradication of these critters, has placed a special lure and trap in strategic areas around the physical plant. Developed by scientists at Rutgers University in New Jersey, the lures and traps are active for up to three months. They will be checked regularly, and if evidence presents itself, we will communicate the results and next steps at that time. In the meantime, although both companies stated that it’s highly unlikely we would be an attractive place for bedbugs to breed, as there aren’t enough opportunities for them to get the (ahem) “nutrition” they need, we have been advised that heat is the best way to eliminate any bugs and their eggs that might be here, so we are washing and drying on high heat all of our cassocks, surplices, albs, and other machine washables. After a year and a half of relative disuse, they are due for a thorough cleaning and evaluation anyway.

Cleanliness Is Next to Godliness
In fact, even before this bedbug bugaboo, efforts were getting under way to evaluate and inventory vestments, other sacristy items, acolyte and choir robes, and all the other things that have been accumulating on-site since well before the pandemic. Jessika Whitfield and her associates are undertaking an initial cleanup of the parish hall in advance of an event that J with a K Music School will be holding at the end of this month, which dovetails nicely with the planned Benedictine Day on Saturday, October 30. We have several ambitious goals for that day and can use all the help we can get, so please do plan on joining us. For instance, we intend to evaluate all of our remaining surplus ecclesiastical furniture and woodwork. Some of it will be sent out to be repurposed and returned to be put to practical use, some of it will be placed in a consolidated storage area for future projects, and some of it, if not claimed by volunteers, will end up in a rollaway bin rented for the day. By the end of the day, the main room of the undercroft should be entirely cleared out and ready to be transformed into a Sunday School space under the direction of Siobhán Dungan in anticipation of the return of our young people and resumption of in-person programs for children and youth as soon as those youth and their parents are ready and willing to return!

A Learning Parish and a Teaching Parish
We are also hard at work developing Christian formation opportunities geared toward newcomers and longtime parishioners alike. John Stuart has been working with me on something for Lent, and Fr. D’Angelo is in the midst of developing something for Advent. Most exciting of all, we are planning on launching a program for those who are considering baptism or confirmation as adults, or who would appreciate a closer look at our liturgy and the Anglo-Catholic tradition, whether as newcomers or not. While we are still in the initial stages of developing these offerings, please let the clergy know if there’s something in particular you would like to learn about. Equally welcome are ideas from the many talented people in this parish who have something to share. We are both a learning parish and a teaching parish, as our work with seminarians also demonstrates.

An Accessible Parish and a Sustainable Parish
As we speed toward the end of 2021, my thoughts turn naturally to 2022 and the hopes we collectively hold for St. Thomas’s. After a mere three months, it is clear to me that if St. Thomas’s is to be the parish God is calling us to be, we must focus on attaining two goals, with God’s help, over the next few years. Neither goal can be met immediately, but there are immediate steps we must take today and tomorrow if these objectives are ever to become a reality. First, we must focus on what it means to be an accessible parish. And second, we must do what it takes to be a sustainable parish.

But which comes first, sustainability or accessibility? It’s sort of a chicken and egg paradox. Do we wait until we can maintain a balanced budget and show signs of incremental growth, or is accessibility a key component of achieving sustainability, despite its front-end costs? From my observations and experience, I’ve come to believe that if a parish focuses obsessively on the issue of sustainability, accessibility issues will always be put on the back burner. Whereas if we address the barriers to greater participation in the life of the church, as well as openness for the sake of our neighbours and the world, we will be better positioned not only for sustainable growth, but also for material and spiritual flourishing. When we invest in accessibility, we are laying the groundwork for sustainability.

I have come to believe that accessibility must be our top priority because it isn’t just about wheelchair access (though that is certainly a big part of it), but about how well St. Thomas’s provides those things that our bodies need in order to see and hear clearly, what we need in order to be where we want to be (both physically and spiritually), and what we need to do so that we can give glory to God and serve our neighbours. When we are at St. Thomas’s, we need to be comfortable enough to be attentive, which means the lights have to be bright but not glaring, the sound needs to be audible but not blaring, and we need to be able to get around wherever we need to be in order to worship and serve without distraction, whether that’s the nave or the washroom, the kitchen or the parish hall. And we must also be as accessible as possible online, via our website, electronic communications, and livestreaming, recognizing that nowadays, if we aren’t accessible online, the likelihood of newcomers showing up in person is greatly diminished.

Imagine the (all too likely) scenario of a person who encounters our services online, growing so engaged that she wants to attend in person, only to find upon arrival that it’s a real challenge to get through the door, or that once through the door and settled in the nave, there’s no way of slipping off quietly to the washroom when the call of nature asserts itself over the call to worship!

We are in the process of drawing up detailed plans to present to Vestry in February that will finally address our accessibility issues with realistic, actionable solutions in 2022. Can we do it? I truly believe we can’t afford not to do it, if we truly want to thrive as a parish. Accessibility is an achievable goal that will directly benefit many people, not only in this generation, but for generations to come. We will know we have reached our goal when there are no barriers, virtual or in real life, to participating in everything St. Thomas’s has to offer.

Of course, for us to serve generations yet unborn, we must act in ways that sustain this community over both the short term and the long haul. On the most practical level, that means living within our means. But living within our means doesn’t mean going without those things that make parish life meaningful to begin with! We need superb music, attentive pastoral care, well-organized administration, clean facilities, and so much more in order to be (and do) what a healthy parish needs to be (and do) for its people, neighbours, and friends. In this regard, St. Thomas’s is not far from being sustainable, but we are not yet consistently measuring up; on the other hand, we are not yet out of the woods of this pandemic, and so we need to cut ourselves some slack.

Truth be told, I do not expect us to be on a fully sustainable footing for at least five years. If we invest in accessibility, that investment will not begin to pay measurable dividends immediately. These things take time. In the meantime, we must be prepared to take those risks that will keep us a going concern, serving others in Christ’s name, because if we are to be sustainable over the long term, we must become more accessible, and in order to become accessible, we have to decide that accessibility is worth the investment now, before it’s too late.

Open Minds, Open Hearts, Open Hands, Open Doors
I would never describe myself as “open-minded.” I know what I believe, and I wouldn’t believe what I believe if I didn’t believe I was right! But I want to be a part of a community that is collectively willing to have our minds opened by God, as we encounter other people who think very differently than we do, yet whose hearts have also been opened by God. When we have open hearts, we see each other as people from whom we are called to learn, and to whom we are called to listen. We may never change our minds on any particular issue, but ifour hearts are truly open to God, our minds will be open to being changed—if that is what God wills. In any event, we will, I hope, keep finding new ways to open our hands to those who are in any need or trouble, in any necessity or tribulation.

Finally, to bring it round to where we started, we can only serve our neighbours if our doors are open to them—and not just open, but accessible. An accessible community is sustainable, and a sustainable community will remain open, both in good times and in bad. No creature, however great or small, whether animal, vegetable, mineral (or viral), will be able to keep us from the knowledge and love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be all honour and glory, world without end.

Yours in Christ’s service,

Message from the Rector

Dear People, Neighbours, and Friends of St. Thomas’s,

I have several items of good news and a couple of items of bad (though not catastrophic) news to share. I’ll highlight the important parts below so I’m not accused of burying the lede, particularly with regard to the latter.

First, the good news: On Thursday, the Office of the Bishops decreed that in-person choral music is now allowed in church! I wish I could also say that the diocese has authorized congregational singing, but we have some reason to hope this will also change sooner rather than later. For now, starting this Sunday, we will be able to welcome back several members of the choir, who will remain masked and at the prescribed distance, of course. For a diocese that has exercised such extreme caution during this pandemic, I am sure this decision was not taken without much prayer and deliberation, and I commend the reasonable and holy hope that this announcement reflects.

That said, I’m not quite ready to order up a Te Deum. I’m still waiting for the “all clear” for masks to come off and for all the people to be allowed to sing. When that happens, we will break out two thuribles and the choir will certainly rejoice with a Te Deum, and perhaps as a congregation we will also lustily sing the hymn “Holy God, we praise thy name,” a metrical paraphrase of that canticle that is near and dear to my heart.

On the subject of masks coming off, on Friday afternoon, the Office of the Bishops surprised us all by decreeing that preachers and lay people with spoken parts in the liturgy may remove their masks whilst speaking under certain circumstances. This means that you might now be able to hear my preaching a teensy bit better, and will at least see the expressions on my face. I’ve missed communicating using non-verbal clues, such as the ironic twist of the mouth, or the crinkling of my (prominent) nose. Still, it won’t be the same without (yet) being able to see your faces. From the preacher’s perspective, wearing masks in the congregation creates a sea of poker faces. I really miss the silent give-and-take that some people (often unselfconsciously) engage in when actively listening to a sermon. Without masks, it’s also easier to spot someone who’s snoring during the sermon. For now, however, you may still doze off with some hope of remaining undetected.

So that’s the good news: as of this Sunday, choirs are coming back (masked) and sermons (unmasked) will be marginally more intelligible, if not entirely audible, even when they’re unfathomable and soporific.

Outside of church, the good news continues to grow: 1) Infections in Toronto are on a downward trend. 2) Over 80% of eligible Toronto residents are fully vaccinated. 3) Yale University just released a new study that affirms the efficacy of vaccines against sixteen different variants of the SARS-COV-2 virus, including the highly contagious Delta variant. 4) On Friday, CBC Radio reported that the Pfizer vaccine is on track to be approved for use in children from age 5 to 11 in November, and studies for children six months to 5 years old are well underway. By late fall or early winter, and almost certainly by early 2022, Canada may be able to vaccinate schoolchildren, and perhaps even infants, confident that these measures are indeed effective against even the dreaded Delta variant.

The bad news is that you can still catch COVID, even if you’ve been fully vaccinated. You are far less likely to suffer with a prolonged case, and you are far less likely to be hospitalized (or die). And because you can still catch the plague, some continued precautions continue to make sense.

On the subject of plagues, we do not yet know the extent of the problem, but the newest piece of bad news is that three bedbugs were found at church on Friday. One was found on clothing in a garment bag brought in from outside the church, a second on an item that had been taken from that same garment bag to another room, and a third on another item of clothing in that other room. If the garment bag was in fact the origin of all three bedbugs, they were detected within one hour of the bag’s being brought into the building, and the bag was promptly removed and inspected. Rest assured that the areas in question were not the nave or parish hall. My hope is that none of the parasites escaped, but we will not know that until we have had a professional inspection, which was supposed to happen on Friday night, but the inspector was a no-show.

After my initial visceral reaction, the more rational part of my brain regained control. Just as one swallow doesn’t make a spring, three bedbugs are no cause for panic. They are certainly a concern, but unlike COVID-19, Toronto Public Health does not consider bedbugs a health hazard. Nevertheless, we called the exterminator right away, and were informed that they have bedbug-sniffing dogs! So we will let the pups sniff away in the affected areas and elsewhere on church property, particularly where clothing and vestments are stored, and pray that they don’t find anything. We will keep you posted. In the meantime, I advise you to take any necessary precautions, including inspecting your own bedding and wardrobe, and to keep us all in your prayers.

In many ways, it should come as no surprise that the occasional parasite should invade our ecclesiastical precincts: we are host to all sorts and conditions of human beings, and parasites, like viruses, are indiscriminate when it comes to socio-economic status, race, level of education, or even religion. I hope that we are not infested with these insects, but even if we are, we will act responsibly, and trust that you will as well.

One thing that being a parish priest constantly hammers home for me is that life is full of risks. Despite it all, life is worth living, particularly when it is lived in faith, hope, and love. Those in leadership at St. Thomas’s, both ordained and lay, are committed to confronting the most brutal facts of our current reality, whatever they might be, whilst simultaneously maintaining unwavering faith that we can and will prevail over anything that keeps us from flourishing, with God’s help.

So, as they say, “Good night. Sleep tight…”

Yours in Christ’s service,

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Thanksgiving at St. Thomas’s

On 11 October, I observed my first Thanksgiving in Canada by assisting with the Friday Food Ministry’s special Thanksgiving Day meal. The menu featured the traditional turkey, stuffing, gravy, etc., though vegetarians also had three options to choose from. Fr. Shire worked with a cadre of volunteers, both younger and older, over the days leading up to Tuesday to prepare for the feast. In all, they prepared 14 turkeys and around 135 meals, and every single meal was served to one of our 108 guests that evening. Everyone who wanted seconds received a second helping, and everyone who lined up for a third helping received one, though by that time they were all vegetarian options.

My job, along with Mother Johanna Pak from St. Mary Magdalene’s, was to take the guests’ orders and inform the line workers (seen in the bottom picture, with a sliver of me in my cassock), who were busy putting bags together, which we would then deliver into our guests’ hands.

If you’ve never seen FFM at work, it’s very impressive. Everyone initially lined up on Huron Street running north (toward Bloor), and then those who came back for more lined up on Huron Street running south (toward Sussex).

Photos: Fr. James Shire

Message from the Rector

Dear People, Neighbours, and Friends of St. Thomas’s,

Even though we have not yet laid down a single area rug or hung a single picture in this beautifully renovated rectory, we decided last Saturday that we could not ignore the glorious weather, particularly since we had no idea how many warm days we might have between now and next spring. So we set aside the constant nagging pressure to forge onward with unpacking and settling in, knowing that we would indeed get the house organized to our standards … eventually, and did something uncharacteristically spontaneous: we took a family bike ride.

Of course, “spontaneous” in our house means something other than what it might mean in yours. Before we had children, “spontaneous” meant deciding on something on the spur of the moment, putting on one’s shoes, making sure we had our wallet and keys, and leaving within a few minutes, ready for adventure. In our case, it was lunchtime, and by the time we had settled as a family on a bike ride rather than a leisurely stroll, we first set the children to doing a bit more of their weekend homework for forty-five minutes whilst Anne and I got the bikes ready for their first collective outing. Margaret’s tires needed a bit more air, I had not used my bike since before the pandemic, and Andrew’s bike was a loaner from a very thoughtful parishioner, so we needed to adjust the seat to his height, which seems to have changed quite recently. (I’m told this happens when one is twelve.)

Margaret’s tires were easily inflated, but it took not one but two different bicycle pumps to rehabilitate both of the (very) flat tires on my own bicycle. And lest you get the wrong idea, it was Anne who operated both of those pumps while I edited the draft of the Thurible, sitting on a flattened cardboard box on the basement floor.

Finally, after adjusting our shiny new helmets (mine is red) and packing up our new bike locks, we were ready to head up to the Baldwin Steps, where thankfully we spotted a bike rack in a parkette just across the street. That freed us to climb the steps and enjoy the view of downtown and the CN Tower from the top, and of what we assumed was Lake Ontario in the hazy distance.

We walked around a bit, gawking at Casa Loma and peeking at Spadina House, taking photos of the architecture and flora. Finally, having listened to Margaret and Andrew make up stories about how the CN Tower was in fact the monument to a hamburger impaled on a javelin, we mounted our bicycles and coasted home. Anne had not realized that we had been cycling uphill on the way to the steps, but as someone who hadn’t been on a bike for more than a few minutes for well over a year and a half, that fact had certainly not escaped me. (Every time I genuflected on Sunday, in fact, the corporal mortification I felt reminded me of this painful fact.)

We were all so grateful for the family time together outdoors, exploring our new home. In this time when we have simultaneously too much to do and too little we are allowed to do, it was important for us as a family to remember to celebrate what we do have, to be attentive to each other, and to give thanks.

On this, our first Thanksgiving weekend in Canada, my family and I want to express how thankful we are to God and to you for the many blessings we have received at your hands. From the minute we set foot in the lovely rectory we now call home, these past twelve weeks have been filled with abundant reasons to be thankful.

Your love for Toronto and eagerness to share its delights also shine through in the resources you have made available, some of which are pictured and linked to below. We are grateful for the many ways you have introduced us to our new home and provided guides that we will be able to use for years to come as we continue to get to know this place and its delights. Some day, we hope to possess a fraction of the knowledge of this wonderful city that so many of you do, as we look forward to introducing friends and family to Toronto

Anne, Margaret, Andrew, and I give thanks every day for the happy home we are so privileged to occupy. It was built for entertaining, and we so look forward to opening the rectory for your enjoyment as well as our own delight. As of this writing, we still have yet to lay down any rugs or hang up any pictures. But the rectory will eventually be ready to receive guests and visitors, and the circumstances will some day permit gathering without undue concern for anyone’s health. When that day comes, we will be thankful indeed for the opportunity to get together indoors, particularly when we will be disinclined to be outdoors. Thankfully, I am, as my wife calls me, an “avid indoorsman,” so I look forward to sharing that aspect of our life with you, as well.

Yours in Christ’s service,

Message from the Rector

Icon depicting the Emperor Constantine, accompanied by the bishops of the First Council of Nicaea (325), holding the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381. Unknown author, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Dear People, Neighbours, and Friends of St. Thomas’s,

One of the wonderful things about St. Thomas’s is that both the clergy and laity truly care about what happens in the liturgy. We get the connection between praying and believing. How we pray shapes how we believe, and what we believe shapes how we pray, and how we live. This principle, known as lex orandi lex credendi, is central to who we are not only as a parish but as Catholic Christians.

The basic statement of our faith is found in the Nicene Creed, which originated as a refutation of the Arian heresy. While I’d love to get into all of the details of the formation of the creed in this letter, Wikipedia does a far better job in this instance than I could do, and as you will find, this letter is long enough without it! The interesting thing to me is that this lex credendi only gradually made its way into the lex orandi of the Church, and despite schisms and heresies, including over the content of the creed itself (and especially over the filioque), the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, as scholars refer to it, in fact stands as the defining statement against which the orthodoxy of all churches can be judged. In short, Nicene Christianity is Mainstream Christianity, such that if any of the churches that regard ourselves as “mainstream” were to drift from the creed, we would no longer be recognizably mainstream. The Nicene Creed is the gold standard of Christianity.

Recently, I could not resist placing the Nicene Creed after the sermon at the eleven o’clock service. It was already in this position at the 9:30 service, and I found it disorienting to flip from one order of service to another. I was afraid I’d go on autopilot and launch into the sermon after the Gospel, when I was supposed to be back at the altar leading the creed first. But the rubric in the Book of Common Prayer is to have the creed precede the sermon. What right have I to break this rubric? I have a great respect for the rules, after all. But at St. Thomas’s, we already break several BCP rubrics, such as placing the Gloria after the Kyrie, the Lord’s Prayer before the Fraction. What’s one more little rubric?

Well, it turns out it’s pretty important in the history of liturgy, though it also turns out I stand on pretty solid ground in disregarding it. The use of the creed in liturgy in the Anglican Communion has been informed by two broad streams: the Roman Rite, and Anglican reforms of that rite based on various sources, including other ancient usages such as Sarum, as well as reforms of the liturgy introduced by English and continental reformers. Liturgical reform and renewal have carried on as a process right on down to our own day, through many a schism. If such liturgical debates are of no interest to you, feel free to skip the rest of my letter, which is essentially a report of various conversations I’ve been privileged to listen in on concerning this topic.

I decided, at the urging of a parishioner, not to make such a change based on my own whims but only after thoughtful reflection and study. Accordingly, I posed the question of whether the sermon belongs before or after the creed to several people, including members of a Facebook group I co-founded called, of all things, the Nicene Coalition.

One Coalitionist, a doctoral student named Drew Nathaniel Keane, started with a survey of the Reformed tradition within Anglicanism. (Some of you may recall his presentation via Zoom this past Lent as a part of our multi-parish series on the Eucharist in Time of Pandemic.) As it so happens, he wrote a chapter of his doctoral dissertation on this very question! Mr. Keane replied:

In The Acoustic World of Early Modern England (1999), Bruce Smith maintains that the Prayer Book’s ordering of creed followed by sermon “represents a particularly significant departure from the Roman liturgy” that reflects a uniquely reformed perspective, “Acknowledgement of belief becomes a condition for hearing God’s word preached, not an effect” (p. 266). Whatever one may think of Smith’s reading of the implicit theological statement of the relative positions of the creed and the sermon in the Prayer Book, he is mistaken in claiming Cranmer reversed the relative positions of creed and sermon in the pre-Reformation Roman liturgy. Neither the sermon nor the creed were invariable elements of the pre-Reformed Mass. Procter and Frere (1907) indicate that in the Use of Sarum (the most widely used local adaptation of the Roman Use in England), when the creed was said (on Sundays) and there was a sermon (which was not required for Sunday mass), the sermon followed the creed (p. 469) just as in Cranmer’s ordering. In contrast to the prevailing modern Roman Catholic practice, Durand, 13th-century Bishop of Mende, places the sermon after the creed in his exposition of the liturgy, which order, Jungmann (1986/1951) notes, still prevailed in some dioceses, such as Trier, in the mid-20th century (p. 456). According to Jungmann, in some places the sermon was preached after the reception of the offering, while in England and France in the late middle ages, the sermon was “usually inserted after the Orate fratres” (ibid). Campbell (2018) indicates the relative position of creed and sermon varied in different places (p. 123), as does Maskell’s (1846) study of the medieval Uses of Sarum, Bangor, York & Hereford.

In other words, solid evidence exists for either ordering (creed before sermon or sermon before creed), and the question of whether one order should be given priority over the other has been a subject of debate, conjecture, and ultimately, liturgical variety. Mr. Keane continues:

In 1610 John Boys, commenting on the relative order of creed and sermon in the Prayer Book liturgy observed: “the Nicene Confession after the Gospell and Epistle: because faith (as Paul teacheth) is by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. We must first heare, then confesse for which cause the Church of Scotland also doth vsually repeate the Creed after the Sermon.” This runs contrary to Bruce Smith’s theological rationale for the relative placement of the Creed and the sermon. Smith inferred from the order that only those with faith (indicated by saying the Creed) could profitably hear the sermon. Boys says the Creed follows the scripture readings because hearing the word produces faith. Indeed, while Boys observes that in Scotland [the practice] is for the Creed to follow the sermon, he draws no theological significance out of the (different) order in the Prayer Book.

The Very Reverend Andrew McGowan, Dean of my alma mater, the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University, observed that, “It’s not the Creed that’s moving, it’s the sermon. There wasn’t a sermon there in the Sarum missal, it was added in 1549 and then the adjustments etc. follow based on various theological arguments (and maybe Patristic models).” Mr Keane concurred, adding, “Indeed, the position of the Creed (though not necessary for every Mass) became fixed long before the position of the sermon (which was also not necessary for every Mass). The real innovation of the Prayer Book in 1549 is not the relative order of these elements but that the rubrics require both of these elements for every celebration of the Lord’s Supper.”

In our own congregation, Dr. Barry Graham, whose doctorate is in medieval liturgy, also took note of two of the main historic resources Mr. Keane drew upon in his chapter, and helpfully provided this background for me:

The two most valuable historical sources I’ve found to date have been Josef Jungmann, a Jesuit of the early 20th century, and William Durand, bishop of Mende in southern France in about 1293. Jungmann’s The Mass of the Roman Rite traces the Mass’s evolution over two millennia. Durand’s Rationale Divinorum Officiorum gives a detailed analysis of the contents of the mass as it existed in 13th century Languedoc. Its ideas were highly respected at the time and were adopted at Trent and survived until Vatican II in 1963.

Jungmann tells us that in the first millennium, sermons were restricted to bishops until 529 because of insufficient formation (a.k.a. ignorance) of the lesser clergy. So until 813, sermons by the lesser clergy were translations of the homilies of the church fathers, which were read. The creed followed the last lesson or homily (if there was one) on Sundays and certain feast days. So if the creed was said when there was no homily, it cannot have been intended as an acclamation of the homilies’ contents.

Dr. Graham’s concern was rightly that the sermon should not outweigh the creed in importance, nor be seen to imply that an imprimatur and nihil obstat are to be accorded the preacher’s words. In this understanding, he wrote, “The creed should follow the gospel, not the homily. The creed affirms belief in what it immediately follows. We believe the gospel, not the homily. Following the homily makes it appear as an ego trip on the part of the homilist.”

Far from exalting the homilist, the overwhelming majority of my respondents emphasized the humbling power of the creed vis-à-vis the sermon. Lay theologian Liza Anderson recounted with humour how a mentor told her that “the creed was placed after the sermon so that the congregation could refute whatever heresies had just been uttered from their pulpit.”

Indeed, Fr. John Alexander, the retired rector of the staunchly Anglo-Catholic parish of St. Stephen’s, Providence, Rhode Island, demonstrated the humility every preacher should have when he remarked, “I often think on my way back to the Altar from the pulpit, ‘Whatever mistakes I may have made, now we have the opportunity [in the creed] to put it right!’”

Nowadays, we might suspect that some preachers are not so much ignorant as they are disdainful of the contents of the creed. Sadly, I have often heard sermons that treated various doctrines enshrined in the creed as expendable. Similarly, Professor Jesse Billett of Trinity College around the corner provided this informative footnote:

He remarked to Dr. Graham that he imagined “the reforms of the 1960s and ’70s aspired to give the homily a more organic connection to the scriptural readings, such as it seems to have had before the Creed was inserted.” I resonated with his humorous admission that, “after many a homily I’ve found it useful to rise and begin the Nicene Creed by saying under my breath, “NEVERTHELESS, I believe in One God…”

Canon Jeremy Matthew Haselock, a household chaplain to Her Majesty The Queen, whose liturgical scholarship in the Church of England is well known, succinctly remarked that the liturgical ordering of sermon before creed has its own logic: “the Gospel is read/proclaimed; the Gospel is expounded in the sermon; the people proclaim their baptismal faith with greater conviction.”

Greater conviction. This is, after all, the goal of the proclamation of the Gospel both in its sacred text and faithful exposition. Wherever one puts the creed, its authority always outweighs that of any individual preacher. We are right to avoid in liturgy any impression that the sermon is the “main event” because as sacramental Christians, the sermon may help us love God and neighbour, but it is the Eucharist that is the means of grace by which we join ourselves body and soul to the Presence of Jesus, and are thus equipped with the ability to live up to the challenge of a fine sermon, and the fortitude to disregard an unedifying homily…or overlong rector’s letter.

Yours in Christ’s service,

Message from the Rector

Many people strongly prefer either the contemporary language of the Book of Alternative Services (BAS) or the traditional language of the Book of Common Prayer (BCP). While I certainly have my personal preferences, as the rector of a church that endeavours to offer both with integrity, I don’t play favourites when it comes to these two sibling services. Like my own children, they both spring from the same stock, but each has a unique personality. As such, a sort of sibling rivalry is almost inevitable from time to time. Many of us have experienced this dynamic within our own families, and as a middle child myself, I am fascinated by how the younger relates to the elder, and vice versa. But as the father of this parish family, in a short time I have come to appreciate the charisms of both the BAS and BCP services each in their own right (or rather, their own rite), just as I appreciate the gifts that my children have as individuals.

My reflections on the following are intended to be more observational than magisterial, but when it comes to the differences between the BCP and BAS, what strikes me most is how each one has its own particular eschatological orientation. By this I mean the “already–not yet” tension between the fact that in Christ we are already participating in the Kingdom of God, but we have not yet entered into its fullness, nor will we, until Jesus returns again in glory to judge both the living and the dead. In a broad sense, the BAS emphasizes the “already,” while the BCP emphasizes the “not yet.”

This emphasis on the “already” is most succinctly illustrated in the canon of the BAS, where the celebrant prays to the Father, “For in these last days you sent [Jesus] to be incarnate from the Virgin Mary, to be the Saviour and Redeemer of the world. In him, you have delivered us from evil, and made us worthy to stand before you. In him, you have brought us out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of death into life.”

Compare this with the Prayer of Humble Access in the BCP, which priest and people pray together prior to receiving communion: “We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the Flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his Blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his Body, and our souls washed through his most precious Blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.”

Which rite is right? In good Anglican fashion, I’m happy to assert that they both are. Christ Jesus has indeed made us worthy to stand before the Father, both now and on the Day of Judgement. And yet, even though we have been redeemed by Christ, we are still sinners, and as such, we remain unworthy in ourselves to approach the Altar. But we do approach it, because our worthiness is derived from Jesus, not ourselves.

Consequently, the BCP rite is rightly penitential and anticipatory, whilst simultaneously thankful for the work of salvation accomplished in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Likewise, the BAS rite is rightly celebratory and anticipatory, whilst simultaneously recognizing our need for repentance and forgiveness in the confession and absolution prior to the Eucharistic prayer.

The danger is in over-emphasizing one side of the eschatological coin to the neglect of the other. This does not mean that we are obliged to find the same personal satisfaction in both rites, of course. But I do hope we can appreciate that each is an authentic expression of Christian faith. I am privileged to serve in a parish that encompasses the fullness of both these expressions, and it is my intention to see to it that each of my children receives the love and attention they both deserve, however worthy or unworthy they may prove to be in one respect or another!

Yours in Christ’s service,

N.J.A. Humphrey+
VIII Rector

P.S. I know this wasn’t the promised romp through heresy, schism, and the Creed, but that isn’t quite ready for prime time yet, so you will all just have to wait. I am sorry to disappoint my devoted readership.

P.P.S. For a deeper dive into eschatology, albeit from a Reformed perspective, Professor David Briones provides an excellent overview of the already–not yet tension here.

Message from the Rector

Dear People, Neighbours, and Friends of St. Thomas’s,

I was very much looking forward to writing a letter on the history of the Nicene Creed in the Eucharistic liturgy of the Latin West, with special reference to the Anglican tradition. I was planning a lighthearted romp through schism and heresy, two of my favourite topics. Instead, it is my solemn duty to report to you that an in-person attendee at the 9:30 Mass this past Sunday reported a positive COVID-19 test. The wardens and I are providing this information so that you may make an informed decision if you are considering joining us in person.

We received this news on Wednesday morning, and your wardens took immediate action to contact Toronto Public Health (TPH) to determine our obligations and responsibilities. Before I detail those, you should know that this parishioner had been fully vaccinated and was scrupulous about maintaining masking, hand sanitizing, and social distancing. To our knowledge, the parishioner did not interact with anyone at the service for more than a few minutes.

Following the advice of TPH, we contacted the twenty other parishioners and staff members who pre-registered for the service or were registered at the door, confident that we had missed no one known to be present in the building at the time. On Sunday, Eli McNeilly came in as usual following the 9:30 service and sanitized all high-contact surfaces, including the pews. Upon learning of the case this past week, even though he had already sanitized the church following the 11 o’clock service that Sunday, Eli took the initiative to treat the church and other areas thoroughly again.

Several of the attendees, including both clergy who were present, have since been tested. All reported results have come back negative (including my own), and I trust that had anyone tested positive between then and this writing, that person would have reported it confidentially to us, or TPH would have been notified and contacted us.

When TPH did call me on Thursday afternoon, the official was so impressed by the diligent response of the staff and wardens of St. Thomas’s that they indicated that the extensive paperwork they had emailed me to complete did not in fact need to be filled out, since we had already provided the necessary information before they even had a chance to ask for it. I commend our sidesperson on duty, Sr. Gail Fox, for her due diligence that morning, which made it possible for TPH to conduct a thorough investigation.

Diocesan Developments in Policy

Related to the above, as announced on Tuesday in a pastoral letter from Bishop Andrew Asbil, the Diocese is introducing a policy that requires clergy, employees, and volunteers to show proof of vaccination against COVID-19. The full policy is now available on the diocesan website.

While all clergy, employees, and volunteers will be required to show proof of vaccination, proof of vaccination will not be required to attend in-person worship. Bp. Asbil writes, “I’ve heard that some of you aren’t comfortable returning to in-person worship alongside potentially unvaccinated people, and I know this may disappoint you. We believe we can preserve the health and safety of our communities without denying access to worship, prayer and sacrament. We want our churches to be places where everyone can experience the breadth and length and depth and height of God’s love…”

I understand that some among us struggle with resentment that not everyone who is eligible to be vaccinated has in fact chosen to be vaccinated. This pandemic continues to inflict damage on our physical, spiritual, mental, and economic health; it is easy to resent anything that seems to prolong it. Indeed, it is absolutely essential that every one of us does what we can to end it. I join the Bishop in calling on those who are vaccine hesitant to heed the advice of public health professionals.

But I also agree with the Bishop that public worship must be public, open to all. We must resist the urge to scapegoat anyone, to exclude anyone. In the church there are no outcasts, and the temptation to divide the church into “us” and “them” comes in myriad forms. But from the witness of Jesus in the Gospels in his ministry to lepers, to the heroism of clergy, laity, and religious in responding to the victims of the Bubonic plague, cholera, smallpox, and the AIDS crisis, we have learned that the Church exists for the marginalized, whether “we” consider “them” personally responsible for their condition or not. As many of the Saints themselves have taught, the Church is a hospital for sinners, not a club for saints.

Concluding Reflections

Vaccinated or not, if you do decide to absent yourself from church for any reason, please be assured the clergy are willing and able to bring the Sacrament to you.

Bear in mind that any time minors under the age of twelve are present in church, we will have unvaccinated attendees. Some people are not eligible for the vaccines or have other reasons for not being vaccinated at this time that the public health officials themselves accept as valid. Based on these considerations and others, the real question is not whether it is safer to worship with a “mixed multitude” than a congregation that is known to be up to one’s own standards, whatever those standards may be, but whether gathering to worship God in the beauty of holiness is worth the risk to which we necessarily expose ourselves even when one scrupulously observes all precautions.

Doctors and public health officials at this point are saying that by now it is highly likely that we have all been exposed to the virus, some of us multiple times, including the Delta variant. What determines infection is duration and intensity. And, for the record, it is unknown as of this writing whether our parishioner was exposed to the Delta variant or not. The only symptoms our parishioner experienced were a slightly itchy throat and nasal congestion, no different from seasonal allergies or a late summer cold. The fact that this person was fully vaccinated almost certainly contributed to the mildness of the case, so the basic question of the level of risk to which we are willing to expose ourselves and our loved ones is ultimately unanswerable, because there is no way to measure the true risk of attending any given Sunday church service, going to the grocery store on a Monday at three o’clock, or getting one’s haircut on a Saturday. What statistics exist are extrapolations and are of limited use in guiding our decisions. We never know which car trip will result in a collision, or whether the airplane we board will land safely or not.

In short, life is risky, and life is short. Sometimes it is nasty, brutish, and short, as we have learned to our great sorrow. The only thing we can do is exercise our judgement, informed by the most reliable facts available to us at any given time. And pray. As I’ve written in recent weeks, even when we take every conceivable initiative, prayer is always both the least we can do and the most we can do.

This side of heaven, we will always face dilemmas. But as Jesus says, “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33b).

I hope to see you in church soon, when you’re ready. And if I don’t, I hope you will join us by livestream. As with everything, if you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to be in touch with me via frhumphrey@stthomas.on.ca or 647-947-6442.

Yours in Christ’s service,

N.J.A. Humphrey+
VIII Rector

Message from the Rector

Dear People, Neighbours, and Friends of St. Thomas’s

The weeks really fly by around here. September 12th will mark my ninth in-person Sunday since arriving in Canada and at St. Thomas’s. (But who’s counting?) The kids started school on Thursday. I also interviewed a seminarian from Wycliffe College this week who will officially start with us at the beginning of October. (Look for a formal introduction in a future edition of the Thurible.) Oh, and I picked up some recycling.

That recycling may turn out to be the most important thing I’ve done this week. Last month, Eli cleaned up the area around the fire stairs on the south side of the church, and on Friday I spotted an errant piece of paper, evidently blown off a notice board, which had gotten stuck in the corner. Because that area looked so tidy, I picked it up, intending to put it into the recycling bin, but then I saw that it was advertising for videography services. I immediately wondered whether this might be God’s way of connecting us to a student at the university who could help us with our live-streaming project. I called and left a message, and a couple of minutes later got a call back.

The student I spoke with is just starting his third year as an undergrad, and better yet, he lives in the campus co-op housing on Huron Street. I told him we had not yet installed an upgraded camera and audio system, but wondered whether he might be interested in being interviewed as we look for someone who can take the tech oversight off Matthew Whitfield’s already full plate. After all, we are hoping that Matthew will be able to return sooner rather than later to directing our choirs live. The student replied that he has experience with the sort of fancy camera systems we’re looking into, and he said he thought his schedule might accommodate helping out; even if it didn’t, he knows plenty of students in the same field, and he’d be happy to make some introductions. He promised to email me soon.

Nothing may come of this, of course, but it’s one small step toward three big goals: 1) improve our streaming services for parishioners and virtual visitors alike, 2) reach out to students by building relationships at the grassroots level, and 3) connect with our neighbours who live in the houses owned and operated by Campus Co-operative Residence, Inc., a.k.a. CCRI, which is headquartered right next door to the church. So far, the only thing St. Thomas’s and CCRI share is a dumpster. (We split the cost of renting one.) But I think we might be able to do a little more than that. I don’t know what, but I’m praying about it. Apparently, CCRI is still searching for a new executive director, so I haven’t had a chance to invite anyone to lunch to talk about how to be better neighbours.

Another co-op that’s been in my prayers is the Huron Playschool. They’ve been running their program out of our parish hall basement for decades. I’ve met adults who have fond memories of going to nursery school there. Although not a ministry of the church, the playschool draws parents and children to the church grounds, and this alone presents some sort of opportunity. I haven’t even met the director of this co-op, so—again—I have no idea what might be possible. I do know one thing, though: the faded sign affixed to our baptistry (or baptistery, whichever spelling you prefer) could probably use an update, along with some directional information on how to get into the playschool! Last week, with Christine on leave and our keeping reduced office hours as a result, I saw many flummoxed parents in the courtyard, looking more out of place than that windblown flyer I picked up in the corner. By the time I realized they were probably new families trying to figure out how to get inside, I’d already missed out on some opportunities to be hospitable. I did manage to catch one family and let them know that, as far as I knew, they needed to walk around to the back of the parish hall via the alley between CCRI and the church, but I wasn’t 100% sure of that advice. In any event, we’ve got to find more ways to make these families and others feel welcome.

Anne and I noticed that during the morning at drop-off, it’s popular for parents to stow strollers temporarily in the very area that Eli had cleaned up, but when it rains, there’s no place to stash the strollers where they won’t get soaked. I can only imagine what it will be like in the winter! I don’t know whether some sort of stroller shelter would be helpful, or if that corner would be the best place for it, but I’d like to talk with the director and find out. It seems like the least we could do.

Sometimes very little things can make a big difference. One relatively small change will be the addition of pre-recorded choral music this Sunday as we await the return of live choral music and congregational singing. We will start out with a choral setting of the Nicene Creed by a “guest choir,” as you’ll read below. For various reasons, I’ve decided to place the Creed following the sermon, where I’m told it had been for many years prior to my arrival. To conform the liturgy with what is usually found in other parishes of this tradition, it is fitting that a dismissal should formally signal the end of the rite. These are even more minor changes than what I have in mind with regard to being more cooperative with those two co-ops, but attentiveness to all of these things is for the sake of being more faithful to the mission of hospitality, evangelism, and reconciliation which the church is called to embody.

Of all the little things that are making a big difference, however, your prayers are the most important. As I wrote earlier this week, prayer is both the least we can do and the most we can do at this time, or at any time in a community’s life. I want to thank you all for holding St. Thomas’s in your intentions as we continue the parish novena this week, and I look forward to seeing the wonderful things that God will accomplish through you.

Yours in Christ’s service,